Marc Marquez has always been the big favorite in Austin, and this year is no exception. Riding the Gresini team's Ducati he is finding his competitiveness again and practically everyone considers him the winner of the American Grand Prix. MotoGP returns to the scene this weekend in Texas, where the eight-time world champion achieved success uninterruptedly from 2013 to 2018, then triumphing in 2021 despite the after-effects of the bad injury the previous year.
This list of honors makes Marquez dominant in Austin, but the “host” tries to dampen expectations on the eve of the race weekend. Yes, he has battled with the top riders in the two weekends held so far, reaching the podium in the Sprint at Portimao. However, there is still work to be done to return to being the COTA “cowboy” that we all have been get used to seeing.
“We arrive at a good track for my riding style,” states the Gresini standard bearer in the usual Thursday press conference. “In the past I have achieved excellent results, but now, as we saw in Portimao, there are still three or four faster than me. Let's see if I can get a little closer here. If today they told me that here I will get my first podium with Ducati, I would sign! Because a podium must come before a victory, so let's take it one step at a time.”
Precisely in Austin, Marquez will celebrate his 250th Grand Prix, a milestone in the career of the eight-time world champion, who in 2013 achieved his first success in MotoGP in his second race: “Why do I like this track? Because it turns left more than right, that's the biggest difference. Then there are these stop and go curves that I really like. One of the best memories of my career is here, where I took my first victory in MotoGP, in my second race.”
Marc Marquez, Gresini Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
However, winning like in the past will not be so obvious and, although COTA is a friendly track, Marc will have to ride it on a new bike, so this weekend will also represent an additional opportunity to get to know the Desmosedici: “It's a with a totally different concept, which must be driven in a completely different way. The Honda was very strong in the stop and go corners, as Alex Rins also showed last year, it worked well here, as did me and Joan Mir in India, more or less.”
“Let's see how the Ducati goes here, I know it will be different, but my goal is to try to be smooth on this track. It's a track that I like and when you get to a circuit that you appreciate at least you have fun. We'll try to have fun here, then we'll see. Obviously there will be two or three riders who will be very fast, because they have also been fast in the past. Victory will be very difficult, because first of all a better result must come in Sunday's race. At the moment we haven't even managed to fight for the podium, we made a top 5, but the podium hasn't arrived yet”, explains the Catalan.
The theme of the weekend is none other than Liberty Media. On Easter Monday, the agreement between Dorna and the American giant was made official, with the latter also controlling MotoGP after taking over management of Formula 1. The riders comment positively on this epochal turning point: “Obviously I'm happy of the news, for what they did in Formula 1, which was really huge. It made a huge difference. They are specialists and the goal is to reach the younger generations and perhaps create big names in MotoGP, as Valentino Rossi was in the past, or Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner… These names can reach more people. It will be a question of the investments they make in MotoGP in the entertainment and these are all things that will come in the future.”
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